


vivace scherzando

by foxinsocksinabox



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbours, Artist Grantaire, M/M, Violinist Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5483612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinsocksinabox/pseuds/foxinsocksinabox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Music Man’s lips are still a fraction too thin. “Still,” he says, “I’m very sorry if I’ve been disruptive. I’ll try to keep it down from now on.”</p><p>“No need.” Grantaire takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders in an effort to feel as calm as he’s trying to sound. “It does me good to get up before noon, anyway. At least you’re not awful, and it’s better than getting woken up by your neighbours having loud morning sex.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	vivace scherzando

**vivace scherzando**  
_musical notation meaning 'lively' and 'joking'  
_

As soon as the weather starts to warm, Grantaire throws his windows open to catch any hint of a stray breeze and leaves them like that for the rest of the summer and a good portion of autumn. More than simply needing good light to paint, he likes watching the bright rays creep across his floor over the course of the day, likes watching dust motes flare and swirl and dance in the golden afternoon light.

One evening, before he switches on the lights, he’s struck by the classic composition of it. The rest of his living room is dark save for the objects nearest the window: his easel, a pile of books, a vase he picked up in a flea market that he uses to hold his brushes. Lit in vivid sunset colours, chiaroscuro transforms the scattered odds and ends of an artist’s life into something shadowed and mysterious, and Grantaire holds the image in his mind for days before he manages to get it down on canvas. 

There is a downside to having his window open twenty-four hours a day, however. Long before Grantaire needs to get up in the morning (the benefits of a life as a freelancer), faint strains of music begin to slide through the open window, burrowing through his blanket cocoon and into his tender brain. 

His groan is depressingly, miserably heartfelt. 

Half an hour later, Grantaire is blinking slowly at his coffee machine when the music-- so much a part of his morning routine now that he barely notices it beyond its usually waking him up-- hits a sour note and stops abruptly. The sudden silence, save for the rumble of boiling water, is oddly jarring, and Grantaire cannot help aiming a confused frown in the direction of his window. 

The music, when he thinks about it, is the same one that the violinist has been playing for the past two months. Vivid, dramatic, alternating between large, sweeping notes and lightning-fast runs, Grantaire has heard sections of the piece so many times that he often finds himself humming snatches of it, voice tripping over note-changes that he simply doesn’t have the skill to replicate. 

When the soft _beep_ of the coffee machine interrupts his thoughts, Grantaire’s hands go through the motions, taking down his favourite mug, pouring, lifting, until caffeine burns through his mouth like the best kind of elixir (except not really, but it’s the only one he allows himself these days). 

His feet carry him over to the window in the meantime, and when Grantaire leans out to feel the Parisian sunshine on his face, he can hear soft, vehement swearing coming from the window to his right. 

In the two months since the Music Man, as Grantaire has taken to calling him, moved into the apartment next door, Grantaire has heard his voice exactly twice. Both times, he had been seated at his easel, and the last time had featured Music Man delivering what sounded like a blistering rant to someone over the phone. Grantaire knows that Music Man has a pleasant tenor that can easily cut through steel, but he’s never spoken to him directly. 

He’s listened to him play, though, nearly every day for hours on end. This is the first time Grantaire has heard him have any difficulty with his music. 

Later, Grantaire will call his spur-of-the-moment impulse a definite flash of insanity, fueled by lack of sleep and a caffeine rush, prefaced by two months of waking to this man’s music in his ears. But for now, he just leans further out of his window, hands wrapped securely around his coffee. 

“Hey, Mr. Music Man,” The swearing stops. Grantaire takes a sip of coffee, clears his throat. “You were sounding pretty good until that last note. Hope everything’s okay.” 

The silence stretches long enough that Grantaire starts feeling like a little bit of an idiot before his musical neighbour finally emerges, poking his head out of a window five feet to Grantaire’s right. 

And for a moment, it seems like time stops. It’s unfair, Grantaire has the wherewithal to think, that anyone could be _that_ good-looking; Music Man is blonde and blue-eyed, except that simply _blonde_ and _blue-eyed_ don’t do him justice at all. Grantaire is pretty sure that he’s staring, and he probably would have dropped his mug out of his third-floor window and brained someone if he hadn’t caught it at the very last minute. 

There’s no other word for it. Music Man is beautiful. 

Grantaire is suddenly extremely aware of his sleep-tangled curls, his two-day-old stubble, the fact that he is pale from too much time spent indoors and is now leaning shirtless out of his window while clutching a mug shaped like a toilet. 

Not what he would have gone for, if he’d known he’d be meeting a god. 

“Just a bit of a cramp,” Music Man says, with a disgruntled look that somehow doesn’t make him any less devastatingly gorgeous, just adorable at the same time. He doesn’t appear to notice Grantaire’s sudden crisis of confidence, or his stomach-churning realisation that if he’s already thinking the word ‘adorable’, then he’s fucked. “I think I’m pushing myself too hard, but the orchestra I’m with is performing this in two weeks. I have to get it perfect by then.” 

Swallowing a sudden, irrational burst of stage-fright, Grantaire forces himself to hum, nonchalant. “You’ll be fine. I mean, I don’t know shit about classical music, but you’ve always sounded pretty good before.” A beat of silence. “Not that I’ve been uh. Eavesdropping or anything.” 

Music Man is frowning at him, and Grantaire’s shoulders curl forwards in response. “... I always leave my windows open during the summer,” he admits sheepishly. “Your playing wakes me up sometimes. Most of the time. I’m kind of a light sleeper.” 

In an instant, the frown transforms into something rueful and apologetic, and oh, but Grantaire is so, _so_ fucked. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise. I’m not used to playing with my windows closed, it’s a habit I developed in school, and--” 

Grantaire waves a hand, dismissing the apologies because what even is this man. “Dude, it’s fine.” 

“It’s _not_ fine, I’ve been completely self-absorbed, I--” 

“I work freelance,” Grantaire says, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not like I have a schedule to keep.” 

He deliberately doesn’t mention that he does most of his digital work late into the night, doesn’t think about that first week when he seriously considered hurling a shoe at their shared wall every morning that he was woken after too few hours of sleep. 

Music Man’s lips are still a fraction too thin. “Still,” he says, “I’m very sorry if I’ve been disruptive. I’ll try to keep it down from now on.” 

“No need.” Grantaire takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders in an effort to feel as calm as he’s trying to sound. “It does me good to get up before noon, anyway. At least you’re not awful, and it’s better than getting woken up by your neighbours having loud morning sex.” 

The words have barely left his mouth before Grantaire cringes. He takes a long gulp of cooling coffee and wishes it was hot enough to burn, because evidently his brain-to-mouth filter could use the help today. 

A moment of hesitation. Then, “I’ll take that as a compliment. I think.” 

Grantaire, not trusting himself to speak yet, lifts his mug in toast. 

At that, Music Man’s lips quirk into a tiny smile, and Grantaire’s stomach lurches up into his throat. Frowning, Music Man was already handsome beyond belief, as coolly forbidding as a marble statue. Now, the soft half-smile transforms him, and coupled with the morning light shining on his golden curls-- Grantaire may have forgotten how to breathe. 

His fingers start to itch for a brush, a pencil, _anything_ , because he can already tell that he could try and capture this man on a thousand canvases and yet never do him justice. The urge to try is so very tempting, and Grantaire has never been good at resisting temptation. 

The moment stretches taut between them. Music Man’s smile is just starting to fade when, somewhere inside the apartment, a phone rings. 

Just like that, the fragile tension shatters like finest-blown glass. Grantaire smiles as Music Man’s eyes widen, the colour of a cornflowers and a clear, mid-morning sky. He murmurs a quiet ‘excuse me’ and then ducks out of sight, but he clearly doesn’t bother to move away from the window when he answers the call, because Grantaire can still hear him when he speaks. 

“Yes. No, I didn’t forget. Of course not, it’s only…” 

The pause lengthens, and then Music Man curses quietly. Just as quickly, his voice takes on the sharp cadence Grantaire remembers so well, as he snaps, “I wasn’t doing _anything_ , Courfeyrac, I just lost track of time. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” 

Grantaire huffs quietly and is contemplating just going back inside when Music Man reappears. 

“I have to go.” There is an apology in his voice, even if he doesn’t say it in so many words, and any trace of that earlier sharpness is gone. Grantaire doesn’t really know what to think about that. “I was supposed to meet my friends five minutes ago, and-- I was only going to practice for a little while, but... I have to go.” 

Grantaire shrugs, grins, curls his fingers a little harder around his mug. “Sure. Catch you later, Apollo.” 

And, he’s not sure where the name comes from, when he’s been calling his neighbour Music Man all this time. But, when Grantaire pauses to think about it, it fits remarkably well. Apollo the Sun God, patron of music and healing. If any man was made in his image it’s this one, Grantaire muses, as he watches a faint flush rise on his neighbour’s cheek. 

“Right. Yes. Later.” 

Music Man-- Apollo-- nods jerkily and then retreats back into his apartment. The window closes with a quiet _click_ , Grantaire barely has time to pinch the bridge of his nose, disgusted at himself for that trainwreck of a conversation, before suddenly the window is being thrown open again, and Apollo re-emerges so quickly that Grantaire almost fears he’s going to accidentally throw himself out of the window. 

“Wait! Before you go. ” Grantaire blinks at him, and this time he definitely isn’t imagining the pale, dusky pink that colours Apollo’s cheeks. Grantaire swallows around the lump in his throat and can’t help holding his breath. 

“I realise that I didn’t introduce myself.” Apollo squares his shoulders. “And that’s inexcusable of me, really, since we’ve been neighbours for two months and I’ve clearly been disturbing you with my playing all this time while you’ve been too nice to bang on the wall or tell me to shut up, so. Um. My name is Enjolras.” 

“Grantaire. But my friends call me R.” 

If his voice comes out breathless, Grantaire will never, ever admit to it. 

“R, then.” And, Grantaire thinks he might actually faint, because Enjolras suddenly smiles, open and pleased, and the effect is almost blinding. “I have to go now, but it was nice meeting you, R. I hope we can do this again.” 

“Yeah,” Grantaire says lamely, because there is no way in hell he’s going to say no to seeing more of Enjolras. “Yeah, definitely.” 

“Definitely,” Enjolras repeats. 

They stare at each other for one more moment, eyes wide, and then Enjolras bites his lip in a way that shoots straight through Grantaire like lightning. Grantaire gulps and turns away quickly, face warm, and then there is the _click_ of a window shutting that signals Enjolras’s departure. 

Grantaire lingers at his window long enough to catch the distant sound of a front door closing, and then stays a little longer. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, but when he finally pulls himself away it’s to put down his empty mug and reach for a sketchbook, a piece of paper, anything that could help him capture the image in his mind of a god with a gentle smile, and eyes the colour of the cornflowers.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the semi-orchestra au that no one asked for but has been on my mind anyway. The piece that Enjolras is practicing is the first violin part for Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, which is amazing and you should all listen to it. c:
> 
> Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Come say hi here on [tumblr](http://foxinsocksinabox.tumblr.com)


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